December 9, 2011

This is a easy to prepare sweet which is specially prepared for Karthigai Deepam "Festival of Lights" in India. Karthigai Deepam occurs on the day when the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Karthigai (Pleiades) and purnima. This constellation appears as a group of six stars in the firmament in the shape of a pendant from the ear. Many legends and lyrical poetry have grown round this star. The six stars are considered in Indian mythology as the six celestial nymphs who reared the six babies in the saravana tank which later were joined together to form the six faced Muruga. He is therefore called Karthikeya, the one brought up by the Karthigai nymphs. Houses and streets are lit up with rows of oil lamps (Deepam) in the evening of the festival day (source:wiki).

I'm not a sweet lover but enjoy the ones prepared from jaggery. I have also had this in my Mom place during our summer vacation not homemade but from a old lady who will bring it our doorsteps. She would prepare it so well and I used to simply love it. I truly miss lighting oil lamps here. I'm planning to prepare a different type of appam for tonight so posted this from my archive the other one will follow soon. Happy Karthigai Deepam to all my readers !!!

Take jaggery in another bowl and dissolve it in 1/2 cup water and place it on a stove and stir until the jaggery is dissolved. Filter the jaggery water and keep aside. This is done to remove impurities in the jaggery.

Mash the banana and keep aside.

Grind the cardamom with the sugar to a coarse powder and add it to the mix.

Method

Mix the wheat flour and rice flour in a bowl.

Add the filtered jaggery into the rice and wheat flour mix.

Add the mashed banana and grated coconut to the mixture.

Add water and mix well until desired consistency is reached. Make sure the batter is liquid-ish but not runny.

Heat the paniyara kallu, grease it with little ghee and pour the batter into the holes and cook in medium flame.

Once the appam is cooked say 1 minute or so flip the appams to the other side and cook until appams turns golden brown. Serve Warm.

My Notes

If you do not have the paniyara kallu. Let the batter be thick. Make small balls out of the batter and drop it in oil and cook until it turns golden brown.